Tuesday, November 04, 2008


KPIX Blog: Could Obama Save CA From Prop 8?


This interesting post came to my attention this afternoon. If I had known about it yesterday, I would have blogged about it then. Click here to read the full posting from the local CBS affiliate's political blog for the Bay Area:

Nov 3, 2008 10:39 AM

Could Obama Save California from Prop 8?

Posted by brittneygilbert

Michael Petrelis, who blogs at the Petrelis Files, is focusing his attention on California's Proposition 8. Friday he noted that Barack Obama's image has been used by the Yes on Prop 8 campaign in one of their mailers. Petrelis noted the urgent need for Obama to denounce the ad and to speak out against the constitutional gay marriage ban, but instead, as Petrelis reports, he sidestepped the issue:

The next president of our country went on MTV and gave his thoughts on Prop 8 and gay marriage. He danced around how he opposes the ballot measure based on constitutional reasons, and believes the hateful initiative is "unnecessary," then segued into restating his support for keeping gays away from the institution of marriage. It breaks my heart that a man whose parents, if they were born in another era, because of their mixed races, would have been denied access to the right to marriage, can't see fit to embrace gay marriage equality.


[...] I think many Californians who are staunchly against Prop 8 are disappointed that Barack Obama opposes gay marriage. However, these highly vocal individuals never seem to make too much noise in the next Exectuive-in-Chief's direction.

Perhaps local liberals are so paralyzed by fear that any negative criticism of Obama from within his own party would resonate in detrimental ways. Are progressives so scarred from the past eight years that they will keep mum about such vital issues as marriage equality?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm heartbroken about this, but asking a national politician to take a pro-gay marriage position at this point in time is asking him/her to concede defeat. Remember, as backwards as California is when you look at its whole, the US as a whole is even more backwards.

I really wish Schwarzenegger would've come out more strongly against Prop 8, but, well, he's a Republican.

As a person who's not personally hung up on terminology, I am fully in favor of full-rights civil unions, and hope Obama & the heavily Democratic Congress get their shit together and pass it. Anyone who opposes that will show themselves to be the bigot they really are.

- Jason